Northern San Juan
AvalancheChris Dickson · Apr 2, 2025 · Northern San Juan
Weather
Partly sunny skies heated up the snow on east-facing slopes forming some hot pow conditions and likely a crust. Clouds built quickly and the sky greyed by midday, keeping other snow surfaces cool.
Snowpack
8-12 inches of new snow on top of supportive crusts. Not as much wind affect as I was expecting long a near treeline ridge. The new snow sits on top of crusts, as thick as 35cm on northeast below treeline slopes and as thin as 4cm thick on high north-facing slopes near treeline. Under the recently developed melt-freeze crusts, the top of the snowpack has settled and stiffened into one-finger and pencil-hard slabs. Sadly, below that, the old snow (buried way back on Valentine's Day) is still rotten and faceted. I found wet grains to the bottom of the snowpack up to 11,700' on northeast slopes. But on a north-facing slope, tucked in at 11,400', I found cold snow throughout the entire pack under a thin melt-freeze crust.
Avalanche
Several small Wind Slab avalanches that released during the storm. One very large heli-bombed avalanche in north-facing terrain above treeline.